These items of equipment communicate with one another and with the environment through a physical network. This communication network associated with a set of items of equipment is known by the name ADCN, derived from the expression “Airborne Data Communication Network”.
Fault location is based on a reliable diagnosis of all or some of this set of equipment. Such a diagnosis must take into account the topology of this set and alterations therein. The diagnosis must also take into account the interactions between different systems and in particular the nature of the physical components of the ADCN (discrete, ARINC 429, multiplexed, wireless, etc.). Within the framework of an avionics series, this maintenance system can be either the centralized maintenance system of CFDIU (Central Fault Display Interface Unit) or CMF (Central Maintenance Function) type, or a BITE (Built In Test) at system, resource or even application package level, or a system independent of the system to be maintained, for example, a ground maintenance system for maintaining an aeroplane.
Most of the current maintenance systems include a fault location function. Such a function makes it possible, on the basis of a fault message emitted, to designate one or more sets of elements of the system as being potentially faulty. If several sets of elements are designated, they are then ordered in order of decreasing probability of failure. A drawback of such a system is that no account is taken of the operational constraints of the maintenance operators.
To solve this problem, the method described in patent application US2004/0034456 makes it possible to multiply this fault occurrence probability with the maintenance cost associated with the repair of the elements considered. This system has the drawback of depending on the economic model of the airline and therefore is not intrinsic to the use of the aeroplane. This method does not address the operator's problem which is “to repair the set of elements in as short a time as possible”.
In particular, the objective of a maintenance operator is to minimize the time related to this return to service and maintenance in general. The indications provided by this method can lead a maintenance operator to prefer a repair of an item of equipment which is expensive time-wise but not very costly to a repair of another item of equipment which is more expensive for the airline but whose implementation is much faster.